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Archive for the ‘technology’ Category
59DaysOfCode Registration is Open!
March 16th, 2010
A web and mobile apps competition for idea people.
Now go on and build something.
The 59DaysOfCode Web & Mobile Apps Competition
February 25th, 2010
So my friends and I are putting together this little ditty that, really, is going to be quite the big ditty. We are holding a Web & Mobile Apps competition that is designed to highlight the programming/nerdy talent in the area. It’s open to everyone and the prizes are pretty major.
We are doing two categories: Zero Code, and In-Progress.
Zero Code is a timed category. You have 59 Days to build your app once the clock starts.
In-Progress is for those who might already have something started but still want to compete.
The way that it works is this:
Apply, Early March > Party + Kickoff, April 23 > Get your App Ready > Showcase + Awards, June 22.
We’re putting together around $40K in prizes with one of the winners landing $15,000 in cash. (More details about prizes in the next month or so.) The idea is, though, that after someone wins, my friends and I pull all our resources together to make your idea famous and successful. Sounds nice, huh?
Registration opens next week.
Go here for the last email we sent out:
http://59daysofcode.com/
Follow @59DaysOfCode on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/59DaysOfCode
Dispelling the Launch Myth
September 24th, 2009
I’m just going to lay it down in small words: “If you build it, they will come,” is a crock of shit.
To borrow a phrase, if I had a nickle for every time a website launch was delayed on account of the imperfections…
As a web programmer, I see a lot of projects come and go. We depend on the project manager’s ability to say, “We could spend more time polishing and adding features, but let’s get this in front of some eyes,” which is a hard thing to say, I’ll admit, because there are 10,000 things that could be better. If you happen to be the project manager, then that burden is on you.
And what makes it even harder is this strange voice in your head that says, in no uncertain terms, that as soon as you upload those files, all the world’s web traffic is going to come crashing down on your web server. We start to believe that Google will index those pages in their first five minutes of life rather than the week(s) we know it takes for everyone else’s sites to be crawled. We start to picture the angry emails about god-knows-what wrecking havoc in someone’s personal life because there are two instances where someone’s name is spelled wrong. What could be worse?
Yeah, but that’s not how it works. Uploading some files will probably not register with many people at all. In fact, it’s really anticlimactic when you’ve been cranking out an app or site for weeks and then the moment of truth…is quiet.
I know it’s really hard to picture a world where no one is paying attention to you, but don’t be fooled. That place is real and it’s called the Internet. I’m not talking about your Twitter account or your Facebook page. I’m talking about your new site. Your new application.
There will always be a sea of reasons to wait on a launch, and only one reason to go ahead and do it. (Hint: Progress.)
So you, programmer, in the back with the Redbull and Cheetos, I only have one thing to say to you: Quit being a pansy. It’s time to launch.
PHP/MySQL Full Database Search and Replace
September 1st, 2009
I wrote this because I often need to move data-driven sites from development to production and addresses change. (Wordpress sites, Wordpress MU, Drupal, and so on.) This means I have to go through and change every occurrence of the url as it appears in the database. So when the first few solutions for changing the site url aren’t doing the trick, I have to resort to the following MySQL snippet for updating every single table.
To find a string in a certain field and replace it with another string:
update [table_name] set [field_name] = replace([field_name],'[string_to_find]','[string_to_replace]');
Well, I got tired of doing that and wrote a handy snippet to find and replace across an entire database.
There are no checks or safeguards! This is a quick and dirty script to be used at your own risk!
But if it’s useful, please feel free to say so in the comments.
UPDATE
Added two checkboxes:
- Set the script to never timeout (use with caution!)
- Do a case-insensitive find and replace. (use with caution!)
Download the updated .rar here
My Experience With Joomla
May 21st, 2009
I’m a programmer and I build things for the web.
There are a lot of cases where I need to build a website, then hand over the reigns so the client can add to and edit the site I’ve built after I’ve setup all the initial necessities. This could happen for a number of reasons, but you can guess that it happens a lot. In fact “content management” is all the rage in my business these days with clients requesting the ability to “change this or that” without having to pay a programmer. That’s fair, I think. I would want the same. It’s like wanting to be able to change your own oil without paying a mechanic. Sure, for the heavy-duty stuff, I want an expert, but for something that happens every couple of months, I’d like to do it myself.
I spend quite a bit of time learning about and vetting tools I might one day want to use, so I’m always on the lookout for a bangup CMS. Here are the criteria I use (loosely):
- It’s got to be something I can use, customize, and present to my client without a lot of tutoring.
- I want them to be impressed with what they can do as much as I want them to be impressed with how easy it is.
- I want to be able to “lock it down” enough so that they can’t hurt the initial design without trying pretty hard.
- I want to be able to brand it.
- I want to be able to program custom things in a structured manner without hacking the core of the CMS.
- There should be some community support so that I have somewhere I can turn when I mess up.
- There should be decent documentation so I can look up the things I want to break.
- It should be lightweight.
- I shouldn’t have to design a site around the CMS. Best case scenario, I should be able to “plug-in” the content management capabilities after I’ve fabricated something amazing.
- I’d rather not learn an entirely new vernacular to understand what’s being done.
- Likewise, I don’t want to have to teach one to my client.
That’s a pretty tall order, for sure, but I know it can be done.
I recently had the unfortunate experience of taking a site that was designed by an artist and building it against the Joomla framework. And boy howdy, I hated nearly every second. Joomla is bloated, slow, complicated, and not at all client-friendly. The amount of “changing” necessary to turn it into a simple end-user experience is simply not worth the time.
I often do Wordpress customizations, and from the first line of code, to the last bit of content, Wordpress is far and away a better experience. I started with Wordpress a couple of years ago, before it even got pretty, and it’s been a worthy experience the whole way.
I know the arguments. ”Wordpress was built for blogging first, and content management second.” ”Joomla is a do-it-all product.” “They’re apples and oranges.” ”They weren’t built to do the same thing.”
I don’t care.
Joomla probably has more extensions than Wordpress (I don’t know, I didn’t count), but from a usability perspective Joomla, flatly, sucks.
I think it was best put in this article here (emphasis added),:
“…WordPress is at a point in its progression where it can handle many simple web content management use cases but has not yet achieved a level of complexity as to detract from its usability. It has truly become a viable lightweight CMS – not just a blogging tool. This makes WordPress and platforms like it (Movable Type, Expression Engine, etc.) disruptive technologies in the classic Christensen disruption modelwhere a simple technology reaches a point where it can compete against a more complex incumbent that over-delivers in functionality.”
Playing With Wire has a really great comparison between the two, that I feel, sums it all up. We take the classic need to create a page and compare how it’s done in each of the systems. This is the kind of task that I need to accomplish in 100% of the content managment projects I complete:
Joomla!- From the ‘Control Panel,’ click ‘Add New Article.’
- Select a ‘Title,’ the right ‘Section’, and then the right ‘Category.’
- Write the content and save it.
- From the top-menu, select ‘Menu’ and ‘Main Menu’ (assuming you want to add it to the main menu.)
- Click ‘New.’
- Select ‘Internal link,’ and ‘Articles,’ and then finally ‘Article Layout.’
- Fill in the title of the object as well as the parent item.
- In the column to the right, you now need to browse your list of articles and select the desired article.
- Press ‘Save.’
WordPress- From the Dashboard, click ‘Pages.’
- Select ‘Add New.’
- Fill in the title and contents.
- Select the parent item (if other than root.)
- Click ‘Publish.’
Are there things that Joomla! does that Wordpress does not do? Probably, but I haven’t yet found one that I needed. Is there anything that matters more than that?
The Thing About Teaching
January 22nd, 2009
…is that you’re aiming at a moving target.
And it’s hard to say who you’re serving in the first place. Is it the students? Their parents? The board? The principal?
Oh sure. Take the easy way out and say it’s the students. No Child Left Behind. All children have a right to learn. Blah blah blah.
There’s a very good argument out there that says that teachers are very much like prison wardens.
“And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.”
Forget about that though, think about the audience:
“The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010, did not exist in 2004:
We are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist.
To use technologies that don’t exist.
To solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.“
embedded by Embedded Video
(Thanks Ryan, for sharing this video.)
It’s a moving target. We can’t keep up.
So. What does it take to be a good teacher? If you listen to Paul Graham the best teachers have three things in common:
- They have high standards. Like three year olds testing their parents, students will test teachers to see if they can get away with low-quality work or bad behavior. They won’t respect the teachers who don’t call them on it.
- They liked students. Like dogs, kids can tell very accurately whether or not someone wishes them well. I think a lot of our teachers either never liked kids much, or got burned out and started not to like them. It’s hard to be a good teacher once that happens. I can’t think of one teacher in all the schools I went to who managed to be good despite disliking students.
- They were interested in the subject. Most of the public school teachers I had weren’t really interested in what they taught. Enthusiasm is contagious, and so is boredom.
Which comes down to:
- Inspire them to see the world the way you do.
- Teach them to teach themselves.
I happen to know one woman who is doing that:
“It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment a student realizes that a project is bigger than him, bigger than the school, so big that it envelops the world at large. When a student realizes that what he is doing makes a difference and affects those outside of class, he changes. He recognizes his personal and professional worth, develops passion for his work, and understands what he can contribute to a team. Those intangible qualities lead to the pivotal moment in the transformation of a student from an individual who simply completes a job to one who understands the connection between the project and the outside world.”
( photo credit: local photographer, Craig Kolhruss )
( full article: Cable in The Classroom, Feb. 2007 )
[ Notes: Just so everyone is clear, in the original text, where it says "my game design class", originally read, "the game design class". I have proof. ]
Geekwise – Now With Mobile Support
January 18th, 2009
I’m happy to report that this blog now supports viewing on your mobile device. There are probably some bugs, so please let me know if you stumble across something weird.
And a big shout out to Tyler Reed for the MobilePress plugin. Out of the box, it worked on 90% of the phones I tested.
I’m asking for support for those last 10%. Let’s watch what happens…
[ --- Update --- ]
I recieved an email from Mr. Reed himself regarding the cry for help I left on this blog. This is what he said:
Hey Irma,
Thanks for commenting on my blog and making use of MobilePress. The issue you are experiencing is caused by a WordPress tag that we use in the mobile themes, which is also used in standard WordPress themes. This tag allows other plugins to load their functionality into your themes, such Ad Sense, ShareThis, etc.
In our next release, we will have an option for you to turn this tag off. We’re working as fast as possible to get our next release out with many new features and fixes. If you are using WordPress 2.7, you will be able to update MobilePress easily, using their auto-upgrade functionality.
If you have any other questions or issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind Regards
-Tyler
Now that’s impressive! Will I tell every blogger I know? Undoubtedly.
Glue Toolbar, A First for Usefulness in Social Networking
November 13th, 2008
I’ve been waiting for social networking to be useful to me. Up to now it’s simply been a ‘neat thing’ but not so very useful. Not even LinkedIn really does it for me.
Well, that may change. I just heard about this tool that let’s you know what your friends (I use the term loosely) think about what ever it is you’re looking at.
Couple of quick features and then I’ll leave you to try it for yourself:
- To participate you can either “like” something or add your “two cents” — a short, 140 character, Twitter-like comment. You can also tell Glue to automatically Twitter whatever you put in your two cents.
- Now, whenever you visit a page that contains something Glue is aware of — a book, album, restaurant, etc. — the Glue Bar will drop down and give you access to your friends’ reviews and opinions. To the left side of the screen are your friends, on the right side you’ll find the last 20 people that visited the page, regardless of whether or not you’re following them.
- Firefox only for the moment, but support for other things soon.
(excerpts from Webmonkey)
Personally, I’d rather have the opinions of people I know than strangers when it comes to things like movies and books, but hey, I’m open to ideas, and this bar gives you both.
Full Disclosure
September 26th, 2008
I’m not a blogger. Or a writer. Or an editor, even. But in a lot of ways, I’ve been doing these things for a couple of years. I write things -> people read them -> I get feedback. The only difference has been the audience.
Now for the first time, I’m putting the words where they belong.
These words pertain to my life as a geek, the way that I think, what I read, and things that have happened to me recently. The medical fiasco that I wrote about in an email titled “What Happened Before and a Little After” are the first first series of posts (just copy and pasted here). Now available for the world to read and comment on. Beyond that, I haven’t quite figured it out.
I’ll keep you posted — literally.
Wish me luck.